CHANEBO – Challenges at EU’s North-East External Borders

The special situation of the Eastern border regions and the need for a dedicated support scheme were included in Raffaele Fitto’s Mission Letter as European Commission Executive Vice-President-designate for Cohesion and Reforms, and the European Parliament has also prioritised targeted support for these territories.

The AEBR Task Force External Borders made an important effort to analyse and propose alternatives at the EU North-East external border through initiatives such as the ESPON targeted analysis CHANEBO (Challenges at EU’s NE External Borders), following an early warning by AEBR and its members at the FI/RU border just after the start of the War in Ukraine under the coordination of Johannes Moisio (South Karelia).

 

This project started in June 2024 and ended in July 2025 to produce new territorial evidence on the possible reorientation of development trajectories in the north-eastern EU border regions, which have been negatively impacted by the closure of CB exchanges with the Russian Federation and the termination of CBC programmes since the invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.

It is an ESPON targeted analysis implemented within the TAP “Places resilient to crises” framework, which explored the vulnerability of specific European territories and helped the participating regions strengthen their resilience to future challenges related to cohesion and security.

CHANEBO identified, mapped and analysed the economic and social consequences of the new geopolitical context, in particular on the four partner border regions: South-Karelia (FI), Ida-Viru (EE), Latgale (LV), and Ignalina (LT).

The analysis focused on the impacts of ruptured cultural, touristic, and business ties across borders, which exacerbated the already severe depopulation and investment challenges and altogether resulted in the loss of opportunities for economic and social development, also due to halted EU funding for CB development. It examined the effectiveness of the available policy tools in responding to the crisis and provided scenarios, a vision and recommendations for strategies and policy measures  to better manage the outcomes of the crisis towards more resilient regional development.

These were the policy questions:

• How to differentiate and develop a new growth pattern with nearby EU regions, to open new markets and to engage with new business partners?
• Which policies and tools can enhance relations with regions in the northern and southern parts of the CHANEBO area, including cultural policies and mobility connections?
• How can the Cohesion Policy further support the regions at the EU’s north-east external borders to become stronger and more resilient to future challenges? How can we better involve the Interreg-specific objective “Safer and more secure Europe” in these regions?
• What medium- and long-term visions can be built in the studied area that can turn the crisis into an opportunity by also indicating how to develop success factors at regional and international scale?

 

CHANEBO has delivered a series of nine key publications with insights into the socio-economic challenges and policy implications at the EU’s North-East external borders. These include a final report, regional profiles, comparative analyses, visions and scenarios and policy recommendations. The reports are available on the ESPON website: ESPON Cross-Gov CHANEBO.

The project has also produced several StoryMaps, which can be accessed through the ESPON Data and Knowledge portal via the dedicated CHANEBO page.

The Final Conference on 3 July 2025 was a live broadcast event organised at Le Grow studio in Brussels. In the link, you can access the complete recording.

 

Back to overview